In So Many Words
by Kyoshi7989
Summary: Toph doesn't need to be protected. He'll do his best anyway. Tokka 1sentence fic


**one: comfort**

He was like a child's blanket; so warm and cozy to snuggle in, but really, they had to work on his self-control, because she couldn't have him sneezing every time she _accidentally_ tickled him, now could she?

**two: kiss**

Only once, twice, too many to count, did he dream of her soft, pale lips against him: too pure was Toph to be corrupted by him—he who broke the promised; he who abandoned those that ought to be kept; he who chased after what wasn't his (and he'd be _dammed_ if Toph was ever agreeable to being owned by _anyone_).

**three: soft**

"Get off me!" Sokka whined, and Toph smirked: "Oh, I don't think so, Snoozles—you make a _very_ nice pillow."

**four: pain**

"Well," she said; "Well," he said; then a forceful, "I don't cry often, Snoozles, so stop lookin' at me like that!" and that was that, for if nothing else, he trusted her.

**five: potatoes**

Katara poked the foil-wrapped tubers with a long stick, and as they rolled over into the embers of the fire, Sokka licked his lips: "Mm, potatoes."

**six: rain**

Toph gave the ground a good kick, and up sprang an earthy umbrella, efficient for all it's simplicity, but Sokka stayed outside, shivering, until she finally yielded and consented to allow him under it (she could only stay mad at him for so long; after all, she'd already begun to push her limits).

**seven: chocolate**

Toph shoved the gooey mess into his mouth as Sokka gagged; a moment later he was begging for more, all dignity forgotten, and _that_ was reward enough for her.

**eight: happiness**

"I'm utterly blissful," he insisted, as Ty Lee giggled in the other room, "I _love_ her;" and somewhere, a flower of an earthbender withered up and died.

**nine: telephone**

By the time they'd gotten to the end of the line, the words were jumbled but the message was clear (or close enough): "Toph spikes the pie with the rum pear and the femur-fang."

**ten: ears**

She heard more than she'd have liked: "Yue, fallen; Suki, beloved; Toph, pure; Toph, unreachable; Toph, the greatest; TophTophTophTophToph—"

**eleven: name**

"We should name her," Toph decided after a moment, and Sokka squawked: "It's a mongrel animal! A vicious beast!" but she rolled her eyes and wondered how the hell she'd fallen for a guy so wimpy he was afraid of a poor, helpless, kitty-cat.

**twelve: sensual**

Undoing his ponytail, Toph ran her slender fingers through the coarse strands of hair; and when he shivered, she tried not to reply in kind.

**thirteen: death**

"Don't believe in heaven," she grumbled, "Religion's for saps—" and in the end she regretted it; for wherever could she see him now but Someplace Else?

**fourteen: sex**

"So what do you say we skip this particular…err…_newlywed tradition_…and see what's going on at Earth Rumble XVI tonight?" Sokka proposed after an uncomfortable silence that lasted far longer than either would have liked (The Boulder was knocked off the stage in 2 seconds flat—a new record, even for her).

**fifteen: touch**

He shuddered as Toph's tiny hands crept across his face, exploring; knowing; learning; but worst of all was when her fingers brushed against his lips: a gasp broke through, and she jumped back as Sokka began to question whether his hormones had been acting up a bit lately.

**sixteen: weakness**

"Give me the cookie," Toph insisted childishly, "or no sex for a week—" and really, when she put it like _that_, Sokka simply _had_ to give in.

**seventeen: tears**

They slipped down her cheeks; plopped onto the ground like crystal domes; and he lifted her chin with the very tips of his clever fingers: "Hey now," Sokka said gently, "Hey."

**eighteen: speed**

"Faster, faster," Sokka chanted, "Crush him, Toph!"—one would be interested to find when, exactly, arm wrestling became such a major sport for certain personas, especially when said warrior had formerly been so fixated on wrestling.

**nineteen: wind**

It nipped at her limbs, like a wild dog; trying to steal away her determination, but all for naught: Toph kept running, kept going, for saving him was more important than anything she'd ever come across in her small and wholly unimportant life.

**twenty: freedom**

"I'm free, but tethered," she breathed, in the middle of the night, and looked over at the Water Tribe boy as he tossed in his sleep: what sort of bonds, Toph wondered, bound _him_ to earth?

**twenty-one: life**

He blinked once, there she was; blinked again, there she'd gone.

**twenty-two: jealousy**

"Gravity, sweet gravity," Sokka muttered, kissing the ground, and he'd never tasted anything sweeter—the past five hours had been spent fifty feet above ground, suspended on a giant pillar of earth ("Why?" he asked himself, and wondered if the shredded fan in Toph's sleeping bag should have given him a clue).

**twenty-three: hands**

Sokka had expected her hands to be rough, uneven, like the earth she bent; but was only greeted by the sweet melody of flawless skin meeting tanned flesh.

**twenty-four: taste**

Sokka's eyes followed Toph's eager mouth as she bit into the peach; a moment later he was licking the sweet, orange juice right off her lips.

**twenty-five: devotion**

Three loves; but true: his heart only belonged to one.

**twenty-six: forever**

"Eternity is a very long time," his mother told him, in the beginning, and Sokka just considered himself lucky enough to find someone he'd actually _want_ to spend it with.

**twenty-seven: blood**

It dripped from the ends of his fingers; bled into his line of vision; and finally there was nothing, nothing but the world of red—but anything, anything to forget _her_.

**twenty-eight: sickness**

The first time Sokka mentioned it; she scoffed ("Ha! If you can't take the heat, get outta the kitchen and make way for me."); the second time, she was annoyed ("Stop complaining, dammit!"); by the third time, he was bedridden and couldn't walk (she chastised him for not telling her sooner).

**twenty-nine: melody**

"That was great, Toph!" Sokka clapped nervously, as her lips quirked in a reluctant smile (in reality, she'd sounded like a wounded possum-chicken gagged with a urine-marinated bandana, but she didn't need to know that, know did she?).

**thirty: star**

"Wish I may, wish I might, wish the wish I wish tonight," she murmured into the distant night, and tried to deny the words that even now hung in the silent air between them.

**thirty-one: home**

"I don't think—" his voice broke—"I don't think it'll ever be the same;" and Toph believed, for how could she ever return to her parents after the world of freedom and love that she had happened upon nearly by accident?

**thirty-two: confusion**

She though he was in love with Ty Lee; he was under the delusional that she was in love with Aang himself; but it was fear of rejection that drove them off time and time again.

**thirty-three: fear**

Sokka turned pale with fright as Toph shrieked: "Did you just call me _fat_?"—ah, the horrors of pregnancy.

**thirty-four: lightning/thunder**

It crashed, it boomed, it pierced her eardrums, and it was no surprise that for once it was Toph that crawled into Sokka's sleeping bag ("Scared? Ha! I was just worried about _you_, ya big wuss.").

**thirty-five: bonds**

"It was easier to leave her than you thought, wasn't it?" Zuko says softly as Sokka grows rigged; Toph, whose tea has suddenly turned cold, says nothing.

**thirty-six: market**

"Hey, what do you think of the color on this?" Sokka asked excitedly, shoving a scrap of carpet in front of her face; Toph replied sarcastically, "Oh, yeah, it's just _great_, Snoozles"—and the next day, pink was miraculously Sokka's favorite color (he never did understand why she laughed whenever he brought it up).

**thirty-seven: technology**  
The have their own secret language—"I gotta piss" means "Let's get outta here before they start making out on us;" and "Shut the hell up, moron!" translates roughly to "Oh you sexy bastard, quit your yammering and take me now."

**thirty-eight: gift**

"Thank you, Sokka," she whispered into the soft air swirling around her, "Thank you so, so much," Toph choked out, tears streaming down her cheeks, because he'd given her more than anything she ever could have imagined: freedom.

**thirty-nine: smile**

Toph grinned back at him, and for once it was a pure, sincere smile: not mocking or fake or bitter, but her favorite thing about it was the person that had put it there.

**forty: innocence**

"Sokka, do tell me—what is this a picture of?" Toph asked, smirking (as if she didn't full know already); Sokka turned red, and began squeakily—to her unimaginable horror, "Well, Toph, when a man and a woman love each other very much…"

**forty-one: completion**

A half had been missing, ever since Sokka lost Yue; when he discovered the one person that could fill it, he was sure to thank the moon spirit before determinedly walking over and creating a whole new meaning to the term 'bad pick-up line' (she sighed and simply dragged him to town by the ear; and somewhere above, a lady all in white smiled).

**forty-two: clouds**

"Wanna watch the clouds with me?" Sokka asked seriously; Toph pointed at the sky mockingly and cried, "Hey, look—_that_ one looks like a dumbass Meat Head!"

**forty-three: sky**

He squeezed his eyes shut as he fought to sink into sleep: the star-sprinkled night would have been all right, if only _she'd_ been under it with him…

**forty-four: heaven**

And sometimes Sokka thought that this was heaven—princesses with snow-white hair and warriors with golden fans; then he met Toph, and his definition of "perfect" was redefined in two seconds flat.

**forty-five: hell**

A scream broke free from her lips as she clutched her hand desperately, broken beyond repair (Azula sneered, and the fragments of bone scattered farther, farther, until they were unreachable—_just like him_, Toph thought, _just like him_).

**forty-six: sun**

Everything in the world revolved around _her_: "Hey, Toph won!"; "I am _so_ glad I know you;" "Toph, stop—!", but really, it was one of his greatest faults, for that only made it all the worse when she died (for me, he remembered distantly, for me).

**forty-seven: moon**

"I couldn't protect the one I loved," he murmured into the frosty air, breath soft and delicate as a newborn whisper, and Toph took his hand in hers: "Hey, Snoozles," she admonished, tone gentler than he'd ever heard it, "What makes you think _I_ need protecting?"

**forty-eight: waves**

They washed onto the sand, and left behind a shell, spiraling and riveting like the turrets of a castle tower: Toph put it to her ear, and the ocean spoke.

**forty-nine: hair**

Chopping it off in one cruel blow, she dropped it into the river water—swirling with blood and sweat and tears—without regrets (they said no, a girl couldn't leave home, she has to stay with her family; and even if Sokka wouldn't—couldn't—know that the new stable-boy was, in fact, nothing of the sort, being close to him was good enough for her).

**fifty: supernova**

Sozin's comet broke across the sky—"So, this is it," Sokka stated, softly, "So this is it," Toph agreed, firmly; and when the time came to leave their safe haven of sardonic smiles and witty jibes, they didn't look back.

* * *

**A/N: **Wow I had fun writing this. Also--I'm selfish and worked on this instead of the next chapters of _Thirty Ways in Thirty Days_ and _I'd Lie_. Readers--I'm so sorry! It'll be up soon, I promise! Btw, number nine is supposed to be: 'Toph likes the guy with the dumb hair and the boomerang.' Well, it made sense at the time...


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